Chapter Twenty-Two
Bea could not sleep. But not for lack of trying. She had blown out her candle, folded her hands primly atop the coverlet, and willed herself toward peaceful oblivion.
It did not work.
It did not even come close.
Every time she closed her eyes, she felt him.
His mouth on hers. His breath against her cheek. His body over hers, solid and warm and so devastatingly certain of itself.
Heat slid through her at the memory, slow, molten, and impossible to ignore.
Bea groaned into her pillow. What had he done to her today? It had been surprising. Entirely unexpected. Pure, base lust. Completely beneath her as a serious political thinker, as the mastermind behind B. Adroit, as a revolutionary.
And yet…
As a woman…
Her fingers curled into the sheets.
He’d asked her if she regretted it. That was the most damning part of all. She didn’t regret it. She wanted more.
Oh, at first she’d tried to tell herself he had coaxed her, maneuvered her, tricked her into kissing him again. That he had manipulated the moment, arranged it like a chessboard so her only possible move was to lean in.
But that wasn’t true. In fact, it was the opposite.
She’d told him exactly what she wanted.
She had felt what he was doing. Every gentle prod. Every cleverly placed remark. Every heated glance meant to lure her closer. She had recognized the strategy as it unfolded and still taken hold of his lapels and dragged his mouth to hers.
A shiver ran through her at the memory.
It had not been Nicholas who forced the moment. She had wanted him. She hadn’t allowed him to goad her like before. Let him draw her in. Let him kiss her and touch her while she’d done the same to him.
And good heavens, the way he had looked at her before he’d pulled her hand down between her legs. Teaching her something she could never banish from her fantasies.
She shifted restlessly, staring up into the darkness.
Nicholas Archer. Impossibly handsome. Apparently infinitely skilled with his hands.
And—curse him—every bit as tempting as he believed himself to be.
He had kissed her back with something more than triumph. More than tactics. More than smug certainty.
He had kissed her like a starving man.
And then—oh Lord—then he had laid her back against the cushions, braced above her, his weight a sinful, perfect pressure she had never known she needed.
She could still feel the solid line of his chest, the way his breath had caught when she touched his shoulders, the way he had murmured her name like a secret.
And his mouth on her breast—
Heat swept through her so quickly she had to squeeze her eyes shut more tightly.
Her nipples tingled at the memory. The slow, deliberate pull of his lips. The shocking, delicious scrape of his teeth. The low sound he’d made—half growl, half groan—when she’d arched helplessly beneath him.
Bea pressed a trembling hand to her sternum as if she could calm the frantic beat of her heart.
No one had ever touched her like that.
No one had ever wanted her like that.
Certainly no one had ever listened to her the way he did. No one had cared what she thought about anything, Parliament, the country, the injustices she secretly sketched in ink. Her father dismissed her. Her mother soothed her into silence.
But Nicholas…
He watched her as if she were not merely present, but essential.
The thought made her breath catch painfully.
Bea shifted under the covers, her thighs brushing, and the spark of sensation that followed was almost too much. She exhaled sharply, her breath unsteady.
This was madness. She was a grown woman, not a schoolgirl sighing over a handsome face. She had a mission—an actual mission—to influence Parliament, to undermine dangerous legislation, to expose hypocrisy wherever she could.
Nicholas was not part of that mission.
He was not part of any plan she had ever made.
And yet her mind refused to quiet. Her body refused to forget. Her pulse refused to settle.
Her gaze swept through the darkness above her bed. What would it feel like—if she let herself imagine it—to have him here? In this room? On this bed? His hands braced on either side of her, his voice a low, rough whisper against her ear?
The image struck her with such force she let out a sound, soft, breathless, dangerously close to a whimper.
Her legs drew up beneath the sheets without her conscious permission, thighs pressing together in sudden, helpless need.
He had done this to her. Nicholas and his wicked mouth and his wicked confidence and the wicked things he’d murmured against her skin.
“Future wife,” he had called her.
She should find that infuriating.
Instead, she found herself picturing his lips trailing down her body, his breath warm against her chest, his hands spreading heat everywhere they touched—
“Oh…” The whisper escaped her before she could swallow it.
Her body curled inward, the tension coiling low, hot, insistent. Each remembered sensation sharpened the next, the weight of his torso pressing her down, the soft velvet of the seat beneath her back, the warm rasp of his breath as he’d whispered her name like a vow he had no right to make.
Her nipples tightened painfully as she pictured his mouth on them—slow, reverent, unbearably focused—and she arched off the mattress, chasing a memory that felt far too vivid for comfort.
Bea pressed a hand to her mouth, as though she could contain the unspooling ache inside her.
This was madness. It was dangerous and foolish, and entirely improper.
And she wanted it so badly her bones were liquid.
Her breath shuddered out of her as she dropped her knees apart and sought the aching spot between her legs with the tip of her finger, seeking relief she could not allow herself to name.
She touched herself. Slowly at first. And then more quickly. The tension built. Climbed. Twisted through her like a silken thread drawn tighter and tighter.
She tried—for one last, futile second—to banish the image.
But she still saw him.
His dark hair mussed by her fingers. His mouth swollen from kissing her senseless. His eyes heavy-lidded, hungry, focused on her like she was something he’d dreamed of too many nights to count.
Bea let out a shaken, desperate sigh, and the tension snapped. Not gently. Not quietly.
It broke over her like a wave, hot and shivering, stealing her breath and arching her spine as the world went white behind her eyelids. Every muscle tightened, then trembled, and she melted into the mattress in a warm, liquid collapse.
She lay gasping in the soft dark, sheets tangled around her legs, her heartbeat wild and unsteady.
The aftermath washed through her in pulses, sweet, dizzying…overwhelming.
Slowly, her thoughts drifted back into shape.
Good heavens. What had he done to her?
What had she done to herself?
She flung her arm over her eyes as if to block out the implications entirely.
She wanted him. She knew what it meant to lie with a man. Georgie had told her. It had all sounded a bit unbelievable at the time, but now she knew exactly what she’d been missing.
She wanted Nicholas with a force that shook her. And that was dangerous. Because desire made women foolish. Desire made women reckless. Desire made women do stupid, compromising things.
And Bea could not—would not—allow Nicholas to become her downfall.
Not when she had a vote to influence. Not when she had a cartoonist’s war to wage. Not when her entire purpose relied on her remaining perfectly, stubbornly un-swayed.
She exhaled shakily.
No matter how good he felt. No matter how intoxicating he tasted. No matter how thoroughly her body betrayed her when she was in his company. She would not let him win. All men wanted was to control women. She could never forget that fact.
Bea rolled onto her side and hugged her pillow.
But long after the aftershocks faded… Long after her breathing steadied… Long after the flush cooled from her skin…
She could still feel his mouth on hers.
And all of it was dangerous…because just before Nicholas had taken her back home this afternoon, he asked her once again about the cartoon in the morning paper. There was no denying it. He suspected something.